


mixed doubles

by tigrrmilk



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tennis, Gen, HAWKEYES - Freeform, natasha romanov is not a great life coach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is former world singles number 17, current world doubles number 25 and world singles bumfuck-nowhere. </p><p>Okay, he’s actually world singles number 98 at the moment, not that he’s checking it obsessively or anything. He was a bit higher a few months ago, but he was knocked out from his last proper tournament (yeah, yeah, a challenger) early on by some 32 year-old who was ranked way lower than him because, you know. Aw, tie-breaks.</p><p>Clint is 26, thank you very much, and has plenty of tennis-playing years ahead of him. He might even be able to stay professional for some of them. Ha ha ha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mixed doubles

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know much about tennis ~~life on tour~, as may become apparent. if anyone does, and feels like beta-reading this (or even if you just notice any glaring errors) then please drop me a line. 
> 
> except for the whole miami masters-doesn't-have-a-mixed-doubles tournament thing. in this universe, it totally does.

So the thing is that they really shouldn’t be two games down in the third set to two teenagers who a) are from the UK and so shouldn’t be able to function in the Miami heat, let alone fucking dominate (and OK it’s only March but whatever), and b) look genuinely like they should still be at school, having their lunch money stolen or whatever.

Not that Clint got all of his knowledge about what happens in high school from the various Spider-Man films (including the animated ones), so shut up.

“Ah, this looks bad right? To me, this looks bad.”

Kate lifts her visor and wipes her forehead, which is dripping, but then so is Clint’s. Her ponytail bobs angrily as she looks at him.

“Shut up and serve,” she says, and that’s why Clint loves her. She rolls her eyes. “You’re a better player than they are, probably, so don’t mope all over the court.”

Heartwarming. “You are too,” Clint says kindly, between gulps of his gross water-with-added-electrolytes. What was ever wrong with normal water anyway? And why does all of his water have some stupid logo on now? Like, just give him a drinking fountain or something and he’d be happier.

“Obviously,” Kate says, and there’s that eye roll again. At least she has some energy left. “Come on. Break them.”

*

Clint and Kate do win, because they are better. Right? But it’s only the second round.

They break them great.

So, no tie-break. Clint is thankful for things - mostly his 20/20 eyesight, his hair that is still way thick even though he’s pretty sure his Dad was balding by his mid-20s (take that, Dad), Kate, Natasha, and for every set that doesn’t end in a tie-break. Unlike that second set, which they really shouldn’t have dropped. _Motherfuck_.

The teenagers shake their hands over the net, and smirk at Clint, like, he’s pretty sure they’re smirking. They lost, they should be despondent! So what the hell is that?

But really, all that Clint cares about right now is that they’ve won, because frankly, it’s the first mixed doubles tournament that’s been held at the Miami Masters since the 80s, he didn’t even quality for the singles tournament (he made the final in his section but he lost to another teenager, let’s not talk about it) and he’d had to withdraw from the men’s doubles after the first round (which they had fucking smashed by the way, straight sets) because Scott tore a ligament in practice. What a dick.

So anyway, if he’d lost to these kids then he might have actually cried.

Clint Barton is former world singles number 17, current world doubles number 25 and world singles bumfuck-nowhere. Okay, he’s actually world singles number 98 at the moment, not that he’s checking it obsessively or anything. He was a bit higher a few months ago, but he was knocked out from his last proper tournament (yeah, yeah, a challenger) early on by some 32 year-old who was ranked way lower than him because, you know. Aw, tie-breaks.

Clint is 26, thank you very much, and has plenty of tennis-playing years ahead of him. He might even be able to stay professional for some of them. Ha ha ha.

Kate is a teenager still, but she’s also like a million years old, right, because when she glares at Clint he feels the weight of history telling him to shut up and get on with what he has to do. Which isn’t fair, because she literally only graduated from her tennis academy like 10 minutes ago and Clint is what, seven years older than her but she’s already way better than he is adult life. Shit.

 

*

 

So the thing about Clint is, he’s a good tennis player and everything. Like, maybe once or twice in a far-off past life he’d been called a _future great in-waiting_ by pundits, he doesn’t keep count, he’s not like Tony Stark who he’s pretty sure still has a folder with everything anybody has ever said about him that he keeps under his pillow. Clint suspects this because two years ago, when he like crashed out of the US Open in the first round, Stark had phoned him up a day later and insisted on taking him to dinner.

And OK maybe Stark was one of the commentators who used to say some nice things about Clint when he’d commentated on his matches, which may have been why Clint went. Well, that and Stark is the richest guy that Clint’s ever met who isn’t heavily involved in organised crime, so Clint knew he wouldn’t go hungry or be in much danger of being injured before his next match.

But Stark seemed to think he was going to become Clint’s life coach, like he’d just talked the whole way through the meal (Clint wondered privately if Stark being given a job where he was just supposed to TALK had been the worst thing that could have happened to him) about how Clint was shaken and that was okay but Clint could just find a way to calm down and like, breathe a lot more and become super zen and he could ignore what everyone had said about him either way like whether or not he was great or a rising star or fragile or whatever and he could just PLAY.

Stark may or may not have done some kind of elaborate tennis-playing jazz-hand motions as he told Clint to play. Clint was pretty sure this was more about Stark like 15 years ago than it was about Clint because nobody had ever called Clint “fragile”. He was pretty sure.

Concedes defeat too easily? Chronic underperformer? That’s more like it. _Scott’s_ fragile.

Anyway, Clint’s good, mostly, and he regularly receives texts from Stark entirely written in emoji (he’d ask Kate to help him decipher them but he has some pride left, thank you), and sometimes he’s grateful even that some of the top people are still thinking about him.

But he’s a good player, and definitely not great.

What Clint does have is great eyesight, and a great visual memory. His one claim to fame (beyond being the answer to his favourite trivia question, “Who did Steve Rogers defeat in straight sets in his first Grand Slam final?”) (it had been Clint’s first one, too) (not that he’s been in any others since) is that since he’s turned pro, he’s never made a wrong challenge. Whenever he challenges a call, that challenge is correct.

It helps with his aim, too. Not that he’s one to brag.

 

*

 

“Who is that?” Kate asks, and she clutches his arm as they’re at the front of the queue for the breakfast buffet. Clint looks up, angrily, because he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink and he can’t believe he’s being asked to do anything right now except eat or drink. It is Breakfast Time.

“I dunno,” Clint says, but he sort of does. “He’s tennis too.” He shrugs his arm away and resumes his normal position, which means he stares at the super greasy bacon for a while before he puts a lopsided omelet and some toast onto his tray, along with a glass of grape juice. Yum.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Kate says, and she loads her tray with lots of fruit and yoghurt, plus one piece of super burnt toast because she likes to live on the edge. They find their usual table in the corner, resign themselves to the fact that someone’s taken away the stack of paper towels that’s usually beneath one of the legs so it wobbles whenever anyone puts any kind of weight onto it, and they start to eat. Kate angles herself so she can watch her new favourite person. Clint thinks he saw him loading his tray with grapefruit, and really, the guy has to be evil.

“Where’s he from?” Kate asks, as she spits out a handful of watermelon seeds and wipes her mouth.

“Er,” Clint says. “Norway? Or maybe he hitched a ride here on a meteor or something. Why is his hair that colour?” Also, he beat Clint a few months ago in Australia and Clint’s still pissed off, mostly because the guy kept mimicking his best moves, which isn’t fair. Nobody else even cares enough to know what Clint’s best moves are, and this kid’s stolen them from him. Plus, when he won, he like clasped Clint’s hand between his own and told him that the first album by the Go! Team would change his life. Just say good game and go away, guy.

Was it meant to be a training tip? Whatever. Scandinavia’s weird and expensive and Clint doesn’t like it. Or this guy, apparently. What’s he called? Norman? No, it’s something stupider than that.

Kate pats his head. “Drink your juice. It’s purple. You like purple.”

Clint grumbles but can’t actually argue. He’s got like, three purple shirts that he owns specifically for wearing at matches. It goes nice with his hair, OK?

 

*

 

Clint watches Kate’s third-round singles match at midday. He takes his lunch with him in a tupperware container and tries to sit far enough back that nobody will notice him, but this sort of backfires. As Kate and her opponent (Mulholland something?) warm up, the woman next to him looks over and her face lights up.

“Ooh! You’re a tennis player, aren’t you?”

Clint puts down his plastic fork with great sadness.

“Yes,” he says.

“Are you Danny Rand?” She asks, all excitedly.

“What? No,” Clint says. He gets it a lot, but really. Rand is US number 2 and world number 13 (not that Clint is obsessive) and sure, he’s at Miami Masters somewhere but he’s not likely to sit by himself in a corner watching a women’s game like an hour before he’s due to play Namor, the biggest shit in pro tennis (and current world number 2) on one of the big fancy courts.

Uh, not that Clint’s memorised all the fixtures or anything.

And don’t ask Clint where he ranks out of the US professional players. Seriously, don’t.

Um, he ranks higher than Scott, at least. Usually.

“Oh,” the woman says, embarrassed. Clint’s hand twitches. He really wants to eat his lunch.

“I’m Clint Barton,” he says. “Kate’s my mixed doubles partner.” He nods to Kate, who’s about to take her first serve. She’s wearing a purple dress, because never let it be said that Kate Bishop doesn’t have great taste.

“Oh,” the woman says again. Clint doesn’t say anything like, I used to be US number 2 when Danny Rand was still fucking around in Futures tournaments. He looks down at his lunch, waits for a beat to make sure she’s not going to say anything like Oh I remember your match against Steve Rogers that one time, and then he starts to eat. He watches the match in silence.

Kate wins, duh.

 

*

 

But then Kate loses to Carol in the fourth round, but it’s OK, because she knows where she fucked up and Carol is good, like super good. Like, world number 5 (and former world number 1) good. Well no, it sucks, but you know. Clint tries to knock her arm with his fist in sympathy, but she glares at him. Anyway, Kate is like a big deal now, and people keep asking Clint about her. When he’s on his way out of the stands after the match, a journalist (Clint’s guessing from his haircut that he probably works for public radio) grabs him and asks him what he thinks about it.

Clint can’t work out if he knows that he’s a player (and, duh, Kate’s doubles partner) or if he’s just asking him pretty much at random.

“Uh, they’re good.” Clint says, because really. “I don’t think Kate will need to go through the qualifiers before tournaments for much longer, way she’s playing.”

I mean, what’s he supposed to say?

“Carol’s great though,” he says, and scratches his neck. “This time last year we didn't think she'd be back, but...”

Clint is fairly sure that he will never be hired to be a commentator.

“Thanks, Clint,” the reporter says, because Clint clearly can’t think of anything else to add, and he smiles. Well, Clint supposes it is the guy’s job to know who he is. Among other things.

He thinks once Kate gets more used to playing this many matches and more of these various different opponents, she’ll win her first title on the WTA tour easily, but fuck, you don't just say that to anybody and let it get back to her. Clint raps his knuckles against his head just for thinking it.

Kate and Clint make it through to the semifinals in the mixed doubles, and play a gruelling three-set match against her friend from breakfast (or Alien Boy, as Clint will call him, because he has stupid hair and doesn’t understand social cues) and his slightly-unexpected doubles partner, America Chavez. Clint guesses it makes sense, kind of, as Chavez is probably the coolest person on tour and he is the least cool, and when he tries to talk to her about Animal Collective she probably just has the good grace to pretend that he’s not said anything.

Fine, he’s called Noh-Varr, which... is that just one name? Does he want to be Beyonce? Is it even his first name, cos it sounds more like a surname to Clint.

Fuck’s sake.

They start off on the back foot, and Clint finds himself not able to move with his thoughts. They lose the first set, and they lose it quickly. He finds himself thinking about the money they’ll make if they bomb out now vs the money they’ll make if they get to the final. He can’t help it.

He knows Kate would tell him to stop and just think about the game, but she went to her mega tennis academy and she’s clearly loaded, so she doesn’t really need to worry about prize money. Not as much as Clint does. Not every pro player went to tennis school.

Or, like, school.

Not that there’s as much money in mixed doubles as there is in singles even if you do well, fuck there’s not even as much money in mixed as there is in regular doubles, but he might as well try and bleed dry what money there is.

Shut up shut up shut up.

He rubs his face on his towel, and stares at the court. He hates Miami. If you like Miami, Clint thinks, you’re not a real person. He wants to change his shirt, but Kate clenches her fists angrily and he really doesn’t want to delay her now. He takes a long pull of water and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. He thinks about the profound text he’d received from Natasha that morning, since she’s much too important to see him while a tournament’s on:

 

> _Don’t fuck it up._

And you know what, Natasha is a scary woman and he’d rather not piss her off. He bounces the ball, and prays to the non-existent tennis gods that he will get the first serve in, amen.

And he does.

And the next.

Their problem is that while Noh-Varr and Chavez are both really good, promising young players, their styles work weirdly together. Clint suspects they realised there was a mixed doubles attached late on and their coaches put them together or something. Chavez is self-assured and powerful, while Noh-Varr seems to just want to be the best tennis player ever. The problem is that he’s clearly studied all of the greats, and he’s mixed in all the different things that they do well. So he moves about like Stark, tries to do the weird racket maneuvers that only Odinson could ever pull off, and he’s even got this vicious forehand that reminds Clint of Natasha, and it pisses him off a bit.

It’s not that it never works, but it doesn’t _always_ work.

So Kate and Clint win the second set, and then the third set ends in a tiebreak. Clint feels the back of his neck go hot, but now is not the time. He is here, Miami. He turns around to hit a ball from an angle he literally can’t hit the ball from, but it works.

Even though Clint is the most experienced player on the court (and he ranks higher than Noh-Varr in doubles, he’s checked) he feels like an underdog punching above his weight, by which he means he does some stupid, risky plays, but they do well for him. He gets in drop shots at utterly inappropriate times for drop shots, sucks to be you, Noh-Varr. Kate makes faces at him, but she’s great, too (Clint would worship her backhand openly but he’s not like, weird), and guess what?  
  
They win the tiebreak.

Yeah, Clint didn’t really expect it either.

 

*

 

When they shake hands with them and say, good game guys, Clint can’t help but say to Noh-Varr instead, in his most sincere voice, “The Replacements are pretty good. _Let it Be_.”

Noh-Varr looks delighted, like he’s the one that won.

 

*

 

Obviously they then go on to lose in the final, because... well, most people lose at some point, right? And Clint isn’t remarkable enough to not be one of most people, although Kate probably is. And Clint can’t sleep sometimes because he lays awake and thinks about a few things that suck:

a) his older brother, Barney Barton, former pro tennis player and former world singles number 30, thank you.

b) the fact that he once made the final of the French Open and now he can’t win matches in challenger tournaments

c) oh, general life and death stuff that everyone worries about, you know

d) money, or rather his lack of it

Which isn’t to say that any of these are the reason that he couldn’t sleep before the final, but.

He’s kind of sad because he could use the money, and because Natasha came to watch a bit of it even though her final against Ororo Munroe is, like, the morning after. She’d sent him another text before the match. It said the same thing. That’s the only text she ever sends him.

 

> _Don’t fuck it up_

Clint wishes he could always take the advice. He shakes Faiza’s hand and then Dane’s, and really, they look so happy that he would feel happy for them too, really. But he knows he fucked up. They played great tennis, but he could have too (shut up, it could happen), and he didn’t.

He won’t meet Kate’s eye after, and he vanishes once they’ve spoken to the press because he needs a bath and he needs to sleep for a long, long time. But he still goes the next day to watch Steve play Namor, and he cheers when Steve wins because, really, he cannot put into words for you how much he hates Namor.

Ororo beats Natasha in their final, but Natasha didn’t fuck up, she just didn’t manage to beat Ororo.

Clint spends so long in the shower that the water runs cold. He’s going to be late to the end of tournament party, which is going to suck, because Steve is going to shake his hand at some point and Ororo will look at him and tell him that he can do better than he’s currently doing. Also Namor will probably be there, acting as if he’d _actually won_ rather than trying to slink away for a cry like a normal person, and there are not enough little glasses of wine and stupid canapes in the world.

But he promised Kate he’d go, and it’s not like he has anywhere else to be.

Clint really, really hates Miami.

 

*

 

“Stop playing with Scott,” Natasha says, for possibly the fifth time that evening. “He’s going to have to retire, his legs can’t take it.”

“You don’t think I’ve thought about this?” Clint says, and pulls at his tie. He looks out across the room, and sighs. After he made all this effort just to stop Kate killing him, she’s not actually turned up.

He’s noticed that Noh-Varr hasn’t made it either, though. Chavez had turned up early on, listened to the terrible speeches and clearly realised that this was not a good party and promptly left again. Like Clint would have done if Natasha hadn’t been here and hadn’t taken advantage of the fact that nobody else was remotely interested in talking to him to corner him and tell him how to fix his life.

“You OK?” he asks. Natasha shrugs, because it’s a stupid question. Clint knows it’s a stupid question.

“Ororo played better,” she says. They lean against a back wall, like they’re the outcasts at prom (Clint is sure that if he’d ever gone to a prom or a high school dance he’d think about them far less than he does) but people keep glancing over at Natasha anyway. Nobody approaches, though. Clint crunches on some ice.

The music is far too shit for anybody to want to dance to it. It’s mostly just junior players left and various important tennis people who aren’t professional tennis players. Oh, and the winners, duh. Stark is around somewhere, possibly arguing with Thor because Clint can hear the rumble of an unearthly voice in the background somewhere when he can’t think of anything to say.

“The child who won your section of the qualifying tournament went on to get knocked out by Rand in the first round,” Natasha says. Clint obviously knows this already.

“Danny’s good,” he says, and puffs out his cheeks as he looks around the room. Danny’s not actually here. He’d been knocked out by Namor, he’s probably already fucked off somewhere for training.

“You can outplay him,” Natasha says. She’s got some kind of terrifying drink that she’s been nursing all evening. It has a cherry in it, which Clint thinks she probably just got to freak him out. Natasha’s kind of like a horror film. More Hitchcock than Eli Roth, though.

She eats the cherry, and stares Clint down as she does it. It’s very matter-of-fact.

“I’ve beaten Danny a few times,” Clint says, and nods. “Not at a major for a while, though.”

Not that they've been up against each other in any majors for a while.

“He’s not got the stamina,” Natasha says, and waves a hand.

Clint would make a joke, but, again, Natasha is a frightening one.

“I wonder where Kate is,” Clint says, fairly desperately. Natasha makes a noise that sounds like a snort, but more ethereal.

“He’s not enough,” Natasha says.

“And you think I am?” Clint scratches his cheek.  
  
“No,” Natasha says, thoughtfully. Natasha is world singles number 3 and Russian number 1, and she and Clint started out at around the same time and made it pretty far in Wimbledon’s mixed doubles together when they were basically still kids.

Clint supposes that that tournament is to blame for her residual loyalty (he’d call it friendship if it was anyone else, but like, Natasha). Whether it is or not, she seems to take his being totally pathetic as a personal affront.

“Yeah,” Clint says, and looks down at his shoes. Fuck.

“But you, Clint Barton,” she says, and she juts out her chin as she looks at him. “You don’t get to give up.”

Clint rubs a hand through his hair. “Natasha,” he says, and he doesn’t know what he wants to say next.

It’s getting dark, and Clint wants to go to bed. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he pulls it out and flips it open. It’s a dull silver colour, and it’s covered in scratches. The text is from Kate.

 

> _I hear you’re to blame for Noh-Varr’s sudden steep decline in taste._
> 
> _THE MATS??_
> 
> _I know where you sleep._

He frowns at it and puts it back in his pocket.

Natasha crosses her arms. Somebody’s calling her from across the room. “Clint,” she says. Clint can really feel the effort she’s exerting to not give up on him. She pats his elbow, in what she might think is a supportive gesture, but really isn’t.

“You don’t have to keep fucking it up,” she says.

Clint grimaces. Natasha goes to see whoever’s been calling her. Kate sends another text:

 

> _Don’t let Natasha freak you out. Sorry I’m not there._

Clint has resigned himself at this point to the fact that Kate knows his life better than he does. He texts back.

 

> _dn’t wrry, katie._

He leaves. Steve claps him on the shoulder as he goes past and says “Good tournament!” because Steve is incapable of acting like anything other than an awkward Dad at the end of a birthday party. Steve will probably try and help tidy things away when the party ends.

Outside, it’s cooler than Clint expected. He takes a deep breath. It’s the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships next, and he’s actually got a wildcard, because they feel sorry for him probably.

He won it a few years ago. Well, four years ago. He’s good on clay. He replays the feel of it as he hit his knee and pushed himself back up, and shakes his head to get rid of the memory. He checks his phone, and he’s missed a call from Kate. His screen’s neon blue out here. She’s texted him, too:

 

> _You didn’t fuck anything up._

He doesn’t return her call, and he walks the long way back to the hotel.

 


End file.
